FROM WEAKNESS COMES POWER

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

I already gave you a warning when I was with you the second time. I now repeat it while absent: On my return I will not spare those who sinned earlier or any of the others, since you are demanding proof that Christ is speaking through me. He is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful among you. For to be sure, He was crucified in weakness, yet He lives by God’s power. Likewise, we are weak in Him, yet by God’s power we will live with Him in our dealing with you.

2 Corinthians 13:2-4

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Power from weakness.

It’s really a counterintuitive statement, right?

The world wouldn’t see any value in weakness and would in fact encourage someone to avoid it, lest be exploited and taken advantage of. For the strong are seen as dominant over those who are weak. Confidence and unwavering self assurance are far better character traits than humility and self surrender.

And yet, when we look to the story of Jesus, the Son of the God Most High and Savior of the world, and His death, we see how weakness can result in power.

You remember how things went, don’t you?

The powerful Sanhedrin, the Jewish religious authority of the day, fabricated charges against Jesus and then hauled Him into court. There, He was falsely accused and charged with blasphemy, all because He told the truth.

After that, the Jewish religious leaders marched Jesus to the Romans and convinced Pilate to crucify Him. At first, Pilate had Jesus brutally beaten and Jesus didn’t offer resistance. He took the punishment because it was part of the penalty due sinful man, a penalty He was willing to bear.

This would be bad enough but then the worst of sufferings came on Jesus as He was forced to carry His own cross to Calvary before being nailed to it and hoisted up to hang and die among the mockers who gathered to ridicule Him. Again, Jesus could have called on legions of angels to come down and destroy His attackers before rescuing Him but He didn’t. It was His Father’s will that He see things through until He drew His final breath.

Now, I’m sure the Sanhedrin believed they had taken care of eliminating their number one rival and may have even been surprised that they got their way so easily. I’m sure they saw Jesus as weak with His absence only enhancing their power among the Israelite people.

But then came the third day, the day when weakness and submission gave way to power and dominion.

For the tomb was empty that Sunday morning following Jesus’ execution. He was not there for He had been raised in power and it wouldn’t be long before He would ascend into the heavens where He would sit at His Father’s right hand in authority over all creation.

In looking at Jesus, we see a perfect example of how the Lord can make power emerge out of weakness.

Fast forward less than fifty years after Jesus was raised to power and we find the Apostle Paul addressing the church in Corinth and as you may guess by the theme of this message, he talked about power arising from a place of weakness. Look again at his words here:

I already gave you a warning when I was with you the second time. I now repeat it while absent: On my return I will not spare those who sinned earlier or any of the others, since you are demanding proof that Christ is speaking through me. He is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful among you. For to be sure, He was crucified in weakness, yet He lives by God’s power. Likewise, we are weak in Him, yet by God’s power we will live with Him in our dealing with you.  2 Corinthians 13:2-4

Here, Paul reminds the Corinthians about the Christ that they were supposed to be serving, the Christ they didn't believe was working within the apostle. He assures the Corinthian believers that he and his fellow missionaries were weak on their own merit but ministered by way of the full power of Jesus as they lived in and of Him.

In other words, Paul and his ministry comrades dealt with the church in Corinth, or any other Christian church for that matter, by the very power of the God who raised Jesus from the grave and into authority.

In both these examples, we see how God can take someone out of weakness and into His power, and He is still doing it today. Consider these words from Paul as he wrote to the Romans:

The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. (8:11a NLT)

We are all are weak, unable to get through the things of life without help. None of us can make it on our own and certainly no one is able to deliver themselves from the eternal consequences of sin.

This is what makes the verse from Romans 8 so critically important to us, because we have the very power of God dwelling living in us despite our state of weakness.

Without Him, we can do nothing but with Him, nothing is beyond the realm of possibility, to include being resurrected to eternal life, the eternal life God promised through His Son Jesus.

Praise be to God for abiding with us so that His power might ever emerge from the depths of our human weakness.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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